Cain The Immortal: The Beginning

by Bree Pierce

more or less. Good ole Abel had it all figured out. He would ask God for a wife and children and spend his days with a flock of sheep of his own, teaching his son how to be a shepherd. Suddenly the wind picked up and blew so hard I felt like it would carry me away. I looked over and saw that it was taking my brother away. He was screaming my name as it did.

  “Cain!! Help me!!”

  But I just stood there watching, fascinated by the sight. Then I looked down at my hands and they were covered in blood. I held a knife in my hand. It, too, was slicked with blood. Abel.

  I bolted upright, suddenly very awake. The dream was so real. It was painful. Not only was I cursed to walk the Earth looking like this, but it seemed that I would also have nightmares to contend with. I looked out of the crevice. It was still dark outside, but not for long. I knew it wouldn’t be long before daylight came. I lay back down, hoping to get a little more sleep before having to get up and start looking for food and water. My throat was feeling parched, my stomach rumbling. This was going to be a miserable existence indeed.

  Elisabeth

  A while later, call it thousands of years if you will, I met a girl. Her name was Elisabeth. After traveling extensively, I settled down around the Germanic area for a while and ran into her one day quite by accident. But she left a very real impression on me. She had beautiful blond hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. Elisabeth was magnificent and I wanted to make her mine. A woman of few words, everyone listened when she had something to say and they openly admired her beauty. There were many young men willing to take her to wife, me amongst them if you considered me young still. I still looked the same age as I had the day that I left home. Because she was a noble living in a smaller village, there was a tournament in her honor. The winner would receive her hand in marriage. Sword fighting and jousting were the biggest competitions during the tournament. It went on for days and I competed hard. I knew I had a good chance. I was in the top rankings. The day that I had my last match, Elisabeth caught me alone for a moment. The two of us were hiding out behind what you would think of as a grand stand that had been made particularly for this event. A stolen kiss and a light touch of her hand on my cheek and my heart was gone. If I didn’t win, I didn’t know what I would do. I couldn’t kill myself. Being a cursed immortal sucked sometimes. I couldn’t even die a good death, should I want one. I could be wounded or ill, but never die from any of this. All of the pain without any end to it.

  My last opponent was a knight determined to make a name for himself. He was one of those that had yet to go to war or any battle for that matter; a very young man bent on showing off and gaining a pretty wife at the same time. At one time I suppose I would have felt the same way, but not anymore. Life had hardened my body and my soul, and I was ready. It was a fight to the last man standing, and I was going to be that man. I unsheathed my sword, ready to begin the match. This young man was a very proactive guy. He lunged at me first thing, slashing at me left and right, but without any real forethought to what he was doing. I dodged here and there, occasionally striking a blow that he deflected. It wasn’t long before he began to tire and I started gaining ground on him. Within a few strikes with my sword, sweat was pouring from his brow, his breathing shallow and quick. I swung my sword and it made impact where the top of the hilt met the blade. It caused his arms to shake almost uncontrollably. He fell to his knees, still trying to keep a steady grasp on his weapon, but I was done with this game. I took the hilt of my sword and conked him over the head, effectively knocking him out. I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Surely this wasn’t the best they could do. That was ridiculous. But they were just a small and somewhat poor village. Elisabeth lived well compared to most that lived here. I only hoped I could provide as much for her.

  I won Elisabeth’s hand and promptly married her, giving her everything I possibly could. I built us a new home big enough to start our own family and for once I was happy. She knew about my mark and why I had it. The woman had a strange intuition about her that had her already guessing what the mark was the very first time we met. It was easy to tell her all of my secrets. She kept them hidden away in her heart and she still loved me for it. In fact, she really liked hearing about all of my travels and stories about the adventurous life I had lived. Although I tried to explain to her that it was really more of a forced existence, she would just shake her head and tell me to make the best of what I had been given. After so very long, I still carried around the guilt and the heaviness of my brother’s death. It was a guilt that I had learned to live with. The hardest part, besides telling the woman I love that I’m the biggest murderer in the history of the world, were the nightmares. They still happened frequently, but Elisabeth was always there to soothe my fears and sadness. I would wake up wild-eyed and sweaty, but her wrapping her sweet arms around me and stroking my hair was all I needed. It was all I ever needed. My one thought was what would happen when she grew old and died? I would still be here. Having an answer for everything, she told me that this too was one of those things about life and she was glad to have me. I was more than a little grateful to have her as well.

  The first year of our marriage was such bliss. We had decided we were about ready to start trying for a baby when the plague broke out in the area. It had steadily been hitting other areas in Europe on and off for hundreds of years. In fact, I had actually been through the pain and suffering the Black Death brought, but had survived, like I had everything else. It was my duty to make sure that Elisabeth stayed safe and healthy, and I took it very seriously. So I basically had our house on lockdown. She was not allowed to go out into the village for any reason. She was free to walk the gardens behind our house, but I didn’t want her exposed. It was a very fatal and fast-spreading disease. Within the first few days, villagers were dropping like flies. I did what I could to help without exposing Elisabeth to the danger. She laid clothes outside the front door so that when I returned home I could change before coming in. These clothes would need to be washed and so I took up women’s work as well, washing all of my soiled clothes separately from hers.

  The plague raged on for a few weeks. It was such a small village that it burned through it very quickly and left a little over a third of the occupants alive. It seemed that we were in the clear. Then I returned home one day to find her sitting by the hearth, looking sickly. She got up to meet me at the door, but the smile slipped from her face and she passed out before getting there. I quickly caught her in my arms and went to the rug in front of the fire place, sitting down with her in my arms.

  “Elisabeth!” I cried, shaking her. Her eyes fluttered a second. She looked up at me and smiled a little. “Please tell me you’re not sick!”

  “I’m afraid I am,” she replied weakly.

  “No,” I shook my head, scared out of my wits for her.

  “No matter what happens, everything is going to be okay,” she told me. Sweat beaded on her brow, slowly rolling down her skin one drop at a time. I laid her down on the rug and grabbed some rags and a bowl of cool water. Setting them down on the floor beside her, I pulled her back into my lap, washing her pale face. After she fell asleep, I checked under her arms and her inner thighs, finding the tell-tale lumps that belied the Black Death. It was bad. I laid her down again and grabbed more rags and a straight razor I used to shave. The lumps needed to be lanced. She wasn’t going to like that very much, but it had to be done. I tried to wake her, but was only partially successful. She was in and out of consciousness, but nodded her approval after I told her what I needed to do. It hurt me to have to cause her more pain, as I watched her twitch and moan with each cut I had to make. I dabbed at all the pus and blood coming from the lumps and then washed her up the best that I could. There wasn’t much more that I could do right now besides watch and wait. I held her in my arms all night by the fire, watching it die down to glowing embers and ash. In the very early morning Elisabeth woke long enough to vomit up a good heap of blood, and then passed out again. Because of the force of
her vomiting and her already weakened veins from the sickness, small capillaries in her eyes had broken, leaving tiny pools of blood in the corners. One-by-one, the drops rolled down her cheeks, leaving bloody trails. Even though the end was near, I tried to keep faith that she would press through it and be alright. There were some that did and afterwards they were immune to the plague like I was. Just as the sun’s rays were finally starting to find the windows to our home, her breathing became erratic and her heart started to fail. The sun touched upon her face one last time as she drifted away. I sat there for a good hour, listening to see if her heart would beat again or her lungs would breathe in just one more time. But they didn’t and her skin started to cool in my very arms. Tears rolled down my cheeks and splattered onto her face and hair as I openly wept for her. For what had been and what might have been. For all of the dreams we never shared. I remembered over and over again that day at the tournament that we were hiding behind the grand stand. That one stolen kiss. That one touch. I had to leave here.

  Because the